Friday, March 21, 2008

Rekindled Affection

When I was a kid, I fell hopelessly in love with a boy.

A boy and his tiger.

That’s right. The object of my affection was the mischievous Calvin and his lovable stuffed tiger, Hobbes

Over the years, I managed to collect a hodgepodge of Calvin and Hobbes books. Last week, I found my C&H collection neatly organized in a bedside cabinet. I must have lovingly organized the collection when we moved in seven years ago, since I’ve not (apparently) even opened the cabinet since then.

I couldn’t help myself. I grabbed the first book and have been steadily working my way through ever since.

I’d forgotten how wonderful the comic is. It’s the little things that make it excellent - Calvin’s obsession with dinosaurs and time travel, his love/hate relationship with the little girl who lives across the street, and his conviction that his parents are out to make him as boring as they are.

Calvin’s the kind of little boy you’d hate to parent but love to watch.

Artist Sam Watterson chose to fade into obscurity after his uber-successful Calvin & Hobbes collection was finished. He once said he’d said everything he wanted to say with the completion of Calvin & Hobbes.

There are those, however, who believe Watterson is the secret artist behind the now-successful comic strip Zits. There are those who believe “Jeremy” is really a grown-up “Calvin.”

I hope this isn’t true. For me, Calvin, frozen in time and ageless at six years old, is perfect just the way he is.